Friday, 20 September 2013

BlackBerry Limited Three-Phase Transformation Plan & Vision

"I told you that the company would undergo
significant change at all levels of the company because we needed to change. BlackBerry
10 was late. Our cost structure was too high. We needed management changes, our
application development was low and the corporate culture needed to go through
a necessary change in order to adapt for the new BlackBerry acting in a very,
very competitive market.

So to address these challenges, we
implemented and established the three-phase transformation plan for BlackBerry
and we understood we had to work quickly, but we were also realistic and knew
that to ensure a sustainable improvement, it would take more than a few
quarters to get where we want to be.

First Phase was really the survive stage for the
company and we needed to refocus the organization to deliver on commitments to
reduce cost, to deliver BlackBerry 10, to maintain a strong liquidity position,
to ensure our products where relevant and change the company’s sentiment out
there in the public.

Second
Phase
of our transformation, which we’re just starting now, is to build and to invest
into the future, primarily around four key value drivers that are our BES 10
Enterprise Service platform which would include secure cross platform, data and
voice capabilities.

This stage the second phase is all about
building scale for our products and solutions, and we are working hard to move
our installed base to BlackBerry 10 and BES 10 as we speak, and also to make
BBM the mobile social networking platform of choice.

Third Phase is about benefiting from those massive
changes and a significant investment we will have made in Phase 1 and 2.

In this phase, we will focus on
returning the company back to profitability and establishing a leadership
position in mobile computing with new services and new industries.

In Phase 3, we
anticipate BlackBerry 10 becoming a leading secure mobile computing platform
for a variety of endpoints, such as smartphones, but you can also think CORE,
you can think machine to machine or what people just call the internet of
things.

Devices and
customers will be connected through a global secure and reliable BlackBerry
data network. It’s one of the largest secure data networks out there. It
connects 175 countries with 654 carriers connected to that network".

So with this vision, Blackberry moved
from mobile communication to mobile computing. So all of these endpoints, not
just smartphones, all the mobile computing endpoints that are out there can be
managed as a service by BES 10 across platform and this will make BES 10 the
leading Mobile Enterprise Services platform.

The company also
anticipates that BlackBerry Messenger will have achieved an even larger scale
than today and serve as a consumer messaging and communications platform.

Blackberry also anticipates that secure
corporate collaboration will also be key in the future mobile computing
environment as corporation’s being led by technology-savvy generation goes
social in managing their business and servicing their customers.

Blackberry’s transformation
is ongoing and it is in no way easy as many challenges are still remaining in
front of them, but “We are realistic about what is required to move our
transformation forward in a timely manner towards the success” says Thorsten
Heins.

4 comments:

So... Failed huh? If it's still ongoing, how has it failed? Is it not doing exactly what they said it would be doing in Phase 2? They haven't even hit Phase 3 according to the very description mentioned here yet they've failed.

Of course they're going to "Fail" when all people ever see are what they're doing wrong, but not what they're doing that they said they would.

It's all about the media and the perception it creates. I couldn't have said it better than DaedalusIcarusHelios so just re-read his post above again and again if you don't get it the first time.

Apple's app store didn't have jack shit for nearly 2 years. Now look at BB10's app store, comparatively, they have been growing REALLY REALLY FAST when looking at it as to how Apple and Android first started. Hell, even reviewers stated in the past just how much Apple's app store was lacking; but of course people don't know this or even if told wouldn't care to get it. They know what they see or hear and that's the end of that.

It really IS a fantastic platform.

Now I think they should just go nuts, investors be damned, and spend a good chunk of their "3 Billion in cash" on marketing. I'm sure some aspiring students of film/media that are also BB fans would offer their services at a cheap price and help create 30 seconds of solid commercials for them to air like hell on TV and in theaters.

Fist of all. Before they do anything. They have to replace RT,RB and FB. These 3 gentlemen has not contributed anything to Blackberry. Except drawing their salaries. Make changes to BoD and evaluate the performance of TH at the end of Q3. If replacement is needed, DO IT. I as a shareholder are not pleased with the situation at Blackberry, but we cannot cry over spilt milk and constantly looking back on, what was. The future are there for us to conquer. I say let them glean house and get on with the job.

Then TH, where do we go from here? I grant you, that you have kept the 2 transition periods so far. But in all other aspect of running Blackberry as world class company it once was you are a failure. The people you have chosen such as, I will use their initials is KT, RB and FB are not competent in the position they was hired for. Either you replace them or you will be replaced by the end of Q3. I would as shareholder like you and the above 3 gentlemen replaced asap. For the sake of the company's future. I also think many other shareholders shares my view.